The Beekeeper Drabbles
by sarcastic rabbit
Summary: Four drabbles named after songs from Tori Amos' 'The Beekeeper,' for a prompt by tammy-drabbles on livejournal: The Power of Orange Knickers, Sleeps With Butterflies, Sweet the Sting, Cars and Guitars. Warning for adult relationships and sexual themes.
1. The Power of Orange Knickers

**The Beekeeper Drabbles**

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_Disclaimer: _All characters found in these drabbles belong to Tamora Pierce, not me. Drabble titles come from the names of songs in Tori Amos' 2005 album _The Beekeeper._

_Warning:_ These drabbles are about relationships; some of them are sexual. The writing is suggestive rather than explicit, but if that's not what you're here for, hit the back button please.

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**The Power of Orange Knickers **(Kel/Lerant)

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"—really Kel,_ orange_? I would have thought plain and sensible white, or maybe a pretty blue, or perhaps even a secretly rebellious pink, but orange? You can see that it's a little unexpected," says Lerant, plucking at the questionably-coloured scrap of material over her hip. 

"Is this really what you want to talk about right now?" asks Kel, and shifts her hips, getting a half-stifled gasp out of Lerant. Neither of their breathing is exactly steady.

Lerant latches onto things as tenaciously as a terrier, so of course he doesn't drop the matter. "It's just," and his face is barely keeping in the laugh that is making his chest quiver, "I feel I don't _know_ you anymore. I mean, if you were hiding this, what other things might there be that you're not telling me? I just want to know_ why,_ Kel."

"White knickers are boring," Kel says calmly, and because it's not a wise tactical decision to hand Lerant ammunition, keeps to herself _My uniform is the same one every day._ And _I don't get to pick my dress out in the morning like other girls, but I can at least choose this._

"I would never call you boring, Kel," says Lerant, propped up on his elbow in the bed, looking down at her with his long-lashed grey-green eyes _so pretty_. His warm bare skin is pressed against hers all the way down her body, his leg keeping one of hers trapped underneath, and it's impossible for Kel to tell if he's being sincere.

"Lerant," Kel says mildly, with the bite of her Command-voice underneath.

"Lady Knight," returns Lerant, his kiss-reddened mouth mock-obedient. The pads of his elegant fingers are slowly, lightly, tracing the sensitive skin along the bumps and dips of her ribs, sending hot little itches along her nerves, and it would just figure, Kel thinks, that after the months—_years?_—of dancing around they've done in order for Kel to finally get into his bed, that Lerant's a tease. It's probably a heritable trait in the Eldorne line.

"I'm starting to think that your goals aren't in order," Kel says, as light on the disapproval as she can manage with Lerant willfully eroding her patience.

Lerant's eyes darken and his mouth turns a little ugly. "Not all of us had your excellent, state-funded education, so we have to make do with our own judgment." His fingers stop stroking.

And _gods_, if Kel lets Lerant's issues take over he can keep this up all day. If that happens, Kel might just have to scream, which would bring in all sorts of people staying at this wayside inn, some of whom she knows. She's not sure if one day this thing she has with Lerant might be able to withstand the harsh scrutiny of others, but it definitely won't today.

So Kel flips them over, wrestles Lerant into the pillows, and kisses him until he focuses on more important things. Which, she thinks distantly, was maybe what he was after all along.


	2. Sleeps With Butterflies

**Sleeps With Butterflies** (Daine/Numair)

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Numair returns to find his love is gone.

The innocent green meadow suddenly seems sinister in its cheerful brightness and an adrenaline-fueled _shape-shifted taken by bandits attacked by immortals Mithros above not magic or gods again can't they leave her alone I was only gone a moment_ rushes through Numair's head in pure reflex.

Until he sees the strange creature in the grass.

It is tiger-coloured, bright orange and sharply-accented black in a confusing mish-mash that his eyes refuse to resolve into a coherent shape. Instead it lies in the grass like a strange cloak, shifting and twitching constantly as though alive.

"Daine!" shouts Numair, his voice rough with fear.

The creature explodes into fragments as it startles up. Numair watches, heart thundering high in his chest, as a cloud of furiously fluttering scraps of intense colour are carried, paper-light, up by the wind. They get tossed into a ribbon-like shape that circles, widening and narrowing constantly as it spins further and further away, until it disappears over the tree tops.

The perfect silence of the meadow is broken by a snort, loud as a cannonshot, from the grey pony. A lone bird starts to trill a carefree call.

The playful breeze teases strands from the tumbled curls of Daine's hair where she sits bolt upright on the ground, and fans the beads of sweat on Numair's face. Daine's blue-grey eyes are wide and startled.

"I wasn't asleep but for a minute!" she protests.

"Well," says Numair weakly. "That was something you don't see every day."


	3. Sweet the Sting

**Sweet the Sting** (Alex/Roger)

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It is always a struggle, Alex thinks. He watches, lying on the bed, the remaining tiny flames jump about the glowing embers in the fireplace and throw their huge dark shadows along the wall.

At times like this he wants nothing more badly than a solitary grey dawn on the practice court with a sword in his hand, and the feeling of being as centered and perfect in himself as it is possible to be. In that moment he is as purposeful and sharply-defined as his blade; mind in control of his body, and at the same time outside it and _more_.

Yet sometimes even then the desire creeps up on him and he longs for this: dark red nights and the feeling of falling away, addictive and terrifying; the container of his body dissolving and everything that makes him _Alex_ bleeding into nothingness.

Existing with both states, Alex is not happy. The thought of living with neither makes him equally unhappy. The logical answer would then be to keep only one or the other. Yet somehow Alex cannot bring himself to believe in this solution.

It is a paradox.

"Will you be returning and joining me any time soon?"

The voice is rich with amusement, assured and smooth. Warm breath gusts over the drying sweat on the nape of his neck, making him want to shiver. There is a long body against his back, an arm casually draped over his ribs, and a broad, well-tended hand resting lightly over the muscles of his abdomen.

If Alex has learned one thing, it is that the sharper the sting, the greater the sweetness will be in contrast when it does come. Maybe it has something to do with the same reason that half the Yamani poetry he has read is about small, peaceful, fleeting moments of pure beauty—a perfect white blossom, a reflection in a still pond, the yearning for the unknowable—and the other half is the tearing red of spilled blood and broken loves, and the harsh black of abrupt and brutal endings. To know only one and not the other would be to have incomplete understanding.

Also, Alex is weak.

So he turns over, feet tangling in the sheets, mouth seeking, already feeling the sting where it burns, deep underneath his skin.


	4. Cars and Guitars

**Cars and Guitars** (sisters: Vania and Lianne)

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"—_so bloom'd the darling bud on branch-ed tree,_" sings the young musician, his beautifully-shaped hands plucking a mellow gold accompaniment from the wooden harp in his lap.

_He's good,_ thinks Vania, listening to his clear, vibrant voice cut through the smoky, crowded tavern. The man has a real gift for living his songs as he sings them, drawing the hard-living commoners into respectful silence and a soft mood of enjoyment.

The musician lets the last note trail into silence and finishes with his soul-filled gaze on Vania's sister. Lianne blushes as the applause starts, but she's a Conté, so it only heightens her beauty. The natural pink of her cheeks deepens to rose and set off her delicate features, her large, vivid eyes, and the graceful line of her neck as she tilts her head towards Vania.

_This was a good idea_, Lianne murmurs. Vania smiles slyly back and raises one brow in a move she's copied from Mother and practiced in the mirror: _Of course it was. _Mother uses it as a punctuation mark in her conversation: a single perfect arch fired over the elegant bridge of her nose like a challenge, or the winning stroke of a skirmish. Another time Lianne might wrinkle her nose in disdain, but tonight her eyes sparkle conspiratorially before she turns back to the musician.

Vania leans back to rest her elbows on the rough wooden bar and tosses back her hair so that her cleavage shows and the smooth skin of her throat. The smoky air and this less-than-savoury room smell like freedom to her, and the sense crackles, heady, under her skin. She sweeps a look up under her lashes, _Come hither_, at the man staring across the room: travel-faded black leather, a hard stubbled jaw and wicked dark eyes.


End file.
